Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Introduces New GRAMMY Timepiece

Interlocking Gucci GRAMMY watch will help support the GRAMMY Foundation's GRAMMY Camp program

GRAMMYs

Jun 21, 2017 - 12:57 am

GRAMMY.com

In September 2010, The Recording Academy signed a three-year partnership with Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry, launching a GRAMMY special-edition watch collection. To honor this third year of the partnership and in celebration of the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards, Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry has introduced a new addition to the Gucci GRAMMY collection. The Interlocking Gucci GRAMMY watch is a variant of the Interlocking G, which features a sleek and modern take on the House's double G motif, stainless steel case, 37 mm diameter, quartz movement, and sapphire crystal.

The hallmark of this special-edition model is the bold black leather cuff that embraces the wrist, adding an urban allure to the timepiece. The cuff features the Gucci logo and a gramophone pin — the iconic symbol of The Recording Academy. The case back is also engraved with the Gucci GRAMMY logo.

The Interlocking Gucci GRAMMY watch comes in two variants: the sun-brushed stainless steel case features a black dial, while the black PVD version comes with a dark-yellow dial. The design is kept entirely minimalist, displaying only the Gucci logo and a highly original circular-grained surface that recalls the grooves on a vinyl record.

Among the new initiatives being introduced as part of the partnership in 2013, Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry will support GRAMMY Camp, the GRAMMY Foundation's residential summer camp for high school students.

Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry will identify 10 exceptionally talented young musicians who will be given the chance to attend GRAMMY Camp sessions taking place in New York and Los Angeles during summer 2013. At these camps, students will meet with industry professionals, write new music, visit recording studios and performance spaces, and attend a range of workshops. The summer activities will culminate with a concert celebrating the completion of their experience.

The 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards will take place live on Sunday, Feb. 10 at Staples Center in Los Angeles and will be broadcast in high-definition TV and 5.1 surround sound on the CBS Television Network from 8–11:30 p.m. (ET/PT). The show also will be supported on radio worldwide via Dial Global, and covered online at GRAMMY.com and CBS.com, and on YouTube.

For GRAMMY coverage, updates and breaking news, visit The Recording Academy's social networks on Twitter and Facebook.

Music's Selling Power

Music provides an integral background in the sensory branding industry

Nick Krewen

GRAMMYs

Jun 21, 2017 - 12:57 am

GRAMMY.com

It was once known — and snidely regarded — as "elevator music."

But 77 years after it was first introduced, Muzak, and other forms of business-applicable music, is considered to be an integral part of the rising sensory branding industry, which engages consumers to improve their retail experience through their five senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and sound.

As a 1982 study by Loyola University marketing professor R.E. Milliman concluded, the introduction of music in a retail environment — and even a change of the music's tempo — can favorably boost the bottom line, finding that retail outlets that offered slow-paced music increased their average sales by approximately 40 percent.

A 1991 study commissioned by Muzak Holdings LLC also yielded similar results, noting that low arousal music in a retail environment resulted in an 18.9 percent spike in impulse purchases, while audio advertising influenced more than 80 percent of all buying decisions.

Lorne Abony, CEO and chairman of Mood Media Corporation, an in-store media specialist that purchased Muzak Holdings LLC in May for a cool $345 million, says advertisers have taken notice of the impulsive impact music can have on consumers.

"We provide the background or foreground music to 470,000 locations the world over, for some of the most advanced, cool brands, from Nike to Guess," says Abony, whose Toronto-based company has acquired Somerset Entertainment (home to the nature-driven Solitudes recordings), Muzak competitor Trusonic and Finland's Pelika Business Music Oy.

"The perception really has changed: music really helps our customers sell more. It creates an environment that is conducive and consistent with their brand."

The music in retail environments has also changed, transforming from the syrupy, orchestrated instrumental covers of hits — coined as "elevator music" during the skyscraper construction boom in the late '20s and '30s to reflect the piped-in melodies that would keep elevator passengers calm as they ascended and descended the building — to a current library of 2.8 million songs, many of them contemporary hits licensed directly from artists and their record companies.

As marketing techniques become more sophisticated, the dismissive derision is now giving way to a newfound respect as Mood Media and numerous corporate players such as the Applied Media Technologies Corporation, InStore Broadcasting Network, DMX, PlayNetwork, and Sirius XM Radio vie for their own slice of the estimated $2 billion sensory branding industry.

Aside from the bottom line bump, frequent selling points for most vendors include uninterrupted music free of DJ chitchat, commercials and station IDs; minimum-fuss delivery modes (Internet, satellite or on-premise media); more than 100 program choices; screened lyrics; paid music licenses to performing rights societies, and a reasonable subscription fee as low as $25 per month.

And providers claim their services bring other benefits such as customer retention and stress reduction, as well as competitive advantage and increased employee productivity.

Of course, Major General George Owen Squier, who invented the Muzak concept through his Cleveland-based Wired Radio Inc. back in 1934, had an inkling there was a market to be exploited.

Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry recently teamed up with The Recording Academy for a partnership that will entail the GRAMMY Museum analyzing and preserving an archive of more than 20,000 unearthed original Muzak recordings, revealing the company's — and the industry's — impressive, historic legacy.

Along the way, Muzak introduced and pioneered such concepts as "stimulus progression" — a system providing people with a psychological "lift" through programming sound in 15-minute blocks, determining stimulus by tempo, rhythm, instrumentation, and orchestra size — and "audio architecture," which customizes the piped-in or pre-programmed music to reflect individual business needs.

Within the past decade, audio messaging has been added into the mix, with impressive results. A 2004 study conducted by media research firm Arbitron Inc. discovered that 70 percent of shoppers who heard retail audio advertisements found them to be helpful with their shopping experience, with 41 percent of them making an impulse purchase, and 37 percent making an unplannedpurchase of a product from a brand other than what they had in mind.

With this aural ammunition operating so effectively and efficiently when it comes to encouraging consumers to open their wallets, companies such as Mood Media, now working with more than 800 retail chains in more than 30 countries worldwide, predict a bullish future in sensory branding, especially where music is concerned.

"We see this as a very exciting, very rapidly growing market," says Abony.

(Nick Krewen is a Toronto-based journalist who has written for The Toronto Star, TV Guide, Billboard, Country Music and was a consultant for the National Film Board's music industry documentary Dream Machine.)

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GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program Wraps At GRAMMY Museum

Weeklong program concludes with music performance by the CSCLF Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund Quintet at the GRAMMY Museum

GRAMMYs

Jun 21, 2017 - 12:57 am

GRAMMY.com

In conjunction with the inaugural GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program, on July 20 members of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund Quintet and alumni from the GRAMMY Foundation's GRAMMY Camp — Jazz Session performed at an intimate concert at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles.

The quintet — featuring Yi Lei Hao, An Qi Lv, Fang Liang Ning, Yajing Su, and Yi Chen Yang — performed a selection of music ranging from Maurice Ravel's "Alborada Del Gracioso" to Jacob Gade's "Tango Tzigane." The GRAMMY Camp — Jazz Session band — featuring Patrick Bartley Jr., Luke Celenza, Dominic Sbrega, Gabe Schnider, and Evan Sherman — performed songs including Victor Feldman's "The Chant" and John Scofield's "Golden Daze." The ensembles joined for a finale performance of Leonard Bernstein's "Overture To Candide," which was arranged and conducted by the GRAMMY Foundation's Senior Director of Education David R. Sears.

"Our alliance covers a wide range of initiatives — from music preservation to encouraging and nurturing new music talent," said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy and the GRAMMY Foundation. "The GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program highlights this unique collaboration, which also includes the GRAMMY Foundation and the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation — one of China's largest charitable organizations whose primary areas of focus include fostering the artistic talents of today's youth."

In January 2012 Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry, in collaboration with CSCLF, announced the launch of the Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund, an initiative that provides scholarships to talented students from prestigious Chinese music establishments such as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Xi'an Conservatory of Music and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The most exceptional students from the CSCLF Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund Quintet were invited to participate in the GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program July 16–21 in Los Angeles. As part of the program, on July 17 the quintet participated in the GRAMMY Foundation's GRAMMY Camp Guest Professionals Day, which featured artists and music industry professionals conducting question-and-answer sessions, workshops and master classes with participants of GRAMMY Camp's interactive 10-day residential summer music experience at the University of Southern California. The quintet also performed at the Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy and at the Expo Center on July 18 and July 19, respectively.

View a series of special behind-the-scenes videos documenting the GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program, shot by students who participated in GRAMMY Camp's Music Journalism track.

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GRAMMY Museum To Host GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program Celebration

Weeklong program for Chinese music students to culminate with a performance at the Museum on July 20

GRAMMYs

Jun 21, 2017 - 12:57 am

GRAMMY.com

On July 20 The Recording Academy, GRAMMY Foundation, Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry, and China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, together with Gucci retail partner, Chong Hing Jewelers, will host an exclusive musical performance at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles to celebrate the students of the GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program. A finale performance by the CSCLF Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund Quintet will conclude a weeklong program, recently established in partnership with The Recording Academy and GRAMMY Foundation, that's dedicated to nurturing talented young musicians across Greater China.

In January 2012 Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry, in collaboration with CSCLF, announced the launch of the Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund, an initiative that provides scholarships to talented students from prestigious Chinese music establishments such as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Xi'an Conservatory of Music and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The most exceptional students from the CSCLF Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund Quintet were invited to participate in the GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program taking place July 16–21 in Los Angeles.

As part of the GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program, today the students participated in the GRAMMY Foundation's GRAMMY Camp Guest Professionals Day, which featured artists and music industry professionals conducting question-and-answer sessions, workshops and master classes with participants of GRAMMY Camp's interactive 10-day residential summer music experience at the University of Southern California. Additionally, the exchange students will participate in several community music clinics and performances with alumni from the GRAMMY Camp — Jazz Session program. On July 18 the two groups will perform for students from three Southern California youth music programs, including the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Unified School District's Beyond the Bell Branch at the Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy. On July 19 students will perform at the Expo Center for students from the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra.

Additionally, a special behind-the-scenes video documenting the exchange students' unique journey will be shot and produced by students participating in the GRAMMY Camp's Music Journalism track, and will be available to viewbeginning July 20.

A limited number of tickets to the GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program finale performance on July 20 at the GRAMMY Museum are available exclusively at Chong Hing Jewelers' three Southern California locations in San Gabriel, Los Angeles' Chinatown and Rowland Heights. For addresses and store hours, visit www.chonghing.com.

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GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program Finale To Take Place Aug. 14 In New York

The quintet features students studying at the Xi'an Conservatory of Music in China, who through the Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund, established in 2012 under the aegis of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, were invited to participate in the GRAMMY Cultural Exchange Program in New York.

Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry currently operates three music funds in China, the United Kingdom and Japan in conjunction with a leading musical institution in its respective country, with the mission to support talented young musicians by providing scholarships and opportunities for musical development within the framework of an international music exchange program.

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